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Troy Harrison Articles

Written by: Troy Harrison

Producing Excellent Sales Letters - Click To Read Article
How can you use written communications to facilitate the sales process? This article will show you. First, however, I want to make one very important point: The very best sales letter, brochure, or marketing piece is no substitute for even an adequate face to face sales call. Written sales communications should be designed to facilitate the sales process, not replace it.

The Most Valuable Commodity You Can Market - Click To Read Article
From time to time, I enjoy engaging practiced salespeople and sales managers in conversation about selling on a deeper level. One such conversation that happened this week centered around the question, “what is the most valuable quality salespeople can bring to the table?” Answers ranged from “product knowledge” to “likeability” to “good communication,” and on into “expert questioning” before one of the salespeople hit the correct answer – the answer that trumps all of the above. That answer is trustworthiness.

Are You A Profit Center or a Profit Drain? - Click To Read Article
Invariably, salespeople are either profit generators or profit drains. For some reason, “break even” salespeople have been very rare in my career. There’s a deeper level for us salespeople, though. The two questions we must ask ourselves are: Is our employer better off for having us represent them? And… Are our customers better off for doing business with us?

Take the Second Shot! - Click To Read Article
I get a lot of inquiries and solicitations asking me what my “#1 tip” for increasing business is. This, of course, is a very complex subject that requires a lot of detail. But there is one quick tip I send along that can help people in any phase of business or even their lives. And that is: Take the second shot.

You Read it, You Like it, What Are You Doing About It? - Click To Read Article
As you can imagine, as an author, I have people recommending books to me all the time (or, just as commonly, asking me, "Have you read?". Most of them are business books; the "flavor of the week" phenomenon is alive and well. I seldom read them, to be honest. If I read every business book someone recommended to me, I wouldn't have time to make a living. However, I recently made an exception.

"I'm a Relationship Salesperson" - Click To Read Article
Are you really a relationship salesperson - or do you just think you are? This article will help you decide, and help you really be a relationship salesperson.

Engineer Yourself a Better 2011 - Click To Read Article
For whatever reason, I have spent a lot of my time, particularly within the last three years, working with a lot of companies who have sales engineers - meaning that they hire people with engineering backgrounds to be salespeople. When I tell people about this fact, they give expressions of horror or sympathy, because of what they perceive as the difficulty of training engineers to be salespeople. What's funny is, I love working with engineers. Want to know why?

Are You Giving Thanks, or Begging For Dimes? - Click To Read Article
Ah, yes, the holiday season is upon us. That means that this is the time to spend with friends and family, giving thanks, gifts, and appreciation for all that they give us. It’s also the season for something that is charming at its start, but – if we’re all honest – can get kind of annoying by Christmas – the Salvation Army bell ringers at every supermarket and shopping center. It seems to me that there is a parallel in the sales world.

Excellence on a Small Scale - Click To Read Article
Excellence isn't limited to the Fortune 500. Often, the best experiences are in the smallest places.

Managing Sales Activity for Success - Click To Read Article
Now that we have our sales force in place, it’s time to manage them. To be blunt, most company owners (and/or sales managers) do this incorrectly. Too often in sales, the only feedback given to salespeople ties to their results. Certainly, results are important, and they are ultimately the measurement of achievement. Unfortunately, results are not something that can be managed. Results are history – they have already happened. Activity is what is happening, or what is about to happen. Clearly, then, activity becomes the manageable part of the sales force.

The First Rule of Selling: Have a Plan - Click To Read Article
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Most of us have heard that many times in our business careers, but it’s amazing how seldom it’s followed. We start out with the right intentions, but things get in the way. To be successful, nothing should get in the way of having and implementing an effective plan for selling our products and services. A good plan should include:

Know Your Customers - Or Perish! - Click To Read Article
Most companies (large and small) don’t know their customers very well. Certainly, some people within the company usually have intimate knowledge of key contacts, information, history, and details about customers, but that information isn’t institutionalized as often as it should be – which means it can leave with your salespeople! Remember, you own this data. To that fact, add this one: The most valuable component of any company’s assets is its customer data. Forget your balance sheet, long-term assets, and short-term assets. Without your customers, and the information regarding those customers, everything else is meaningless. Clearly, some framework of capturing customer data is vital for business success. Capturing and using that data is called “Customer Relationship Management.”





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